Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge: 127 (+6) out of 250

Knowing my love for reading, my friend, Laura, sent me the link to this list. I have made those I have read, red (that sounds funny) and ones since 2012 in white. The movies I have seen will be in blue. Here is the original link to the list: 

http://bookreviews.me.uk/rory-gilmore-reading-challenge/


Note: I had no idea WHO Rory Gilmore was until Laura sent me this list. I Googled her and realized that I missed a whole seven years of popular culture. LOL! 

UPDATE August 2019 as I am reading through the 1000 Books to Read Before You Die list. I will do the newer additions in GREEN. I have only added SIX!

Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge

1984 by George Orwell
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll – read – July 2010
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank - multiple movies and play
Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
The Art of Fiction by Henry James 
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Babe by Dick King-Smith
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath 
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
The Bhagava Gita
The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
Candide by Voltaire – read – June 2010
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King 

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger 
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White - and movie
The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
Christine by Stephen King
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – all movie versions known to man
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare - multiple plays
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père - and multiple movie versions
Cousin Bette by Honor’e de Balzac
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber – started and not finished
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Cujo by Stephen King
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon – read – 2009
Daisy Miller by Henry James
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - and multiple movie versions
The Da Vinci -Code by Dan Brown 
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Deenie by Judy Blume
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Don Quijote by Cervantes - and musical 
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson 
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe - many
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma by Jane Austen – and multiple movie versions
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton - and movie
Ethics by Spinoza
Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves - parts
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extravagance by Gary Krist
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury – started and not finished
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien - and movie
Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein - and movie
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom – and movie
Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
Fletch by Gregory McDonald
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - andm movie
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy – started and not finished
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell – and movie
The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - and movie
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald – and movie
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - and multiple movie versions
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Hamlet by William Shakespeare - and multiple movie versions
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling – read
Harry Potter and the (Philosopher's) Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling 
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry - and movie
Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
Henry V by William Shakespeare
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
Howl by Allen Gingsburg - disgusting! 
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Iliad by Homer - and movie Troy
I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – and multiple movie versions
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan - and movie
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - and movie
Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence
The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis - and movie versions
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott – two movie versions too
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold – read
The Love Story by Erich Segal
Macbeth by William Shakespeare 
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Marathon Man by William Goldman
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare (saw it in Ashland)
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult 
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin - and movie version
Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Night by Elie Wiesel
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen – two movie versions
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Old School by Tobias Wolff
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens - and muliple movie versions
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey - and movie
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Othello by Shakespeare 
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby – read
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – and multiple movie versions
Property by Valerie Martin
Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (August 2019)
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers 
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – and two movie versions
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
Roman Fever by Edith Wharton
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster - and multiple movie versions
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin - started but TOO SCARY to finish!
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne 
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd 
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen - and multiple movie versions
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
Sexus by Henry Miller
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Shane by Jack Shaefer
The Shining by Stephen King
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Small Island by Andrea Levy – on my book pile
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers 
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron - many, many years ago. SO HARD!
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov (August 2019)
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
Stuart Little by E. B. White
Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust - have the same version shown in the series on my shelf (August 2019)
Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber - saw it when I was young and SCARY!
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger – read
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 
The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe 
Unless by Carol Shields
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray 
Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - and the mini-series
We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee – read
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire – started and not finished
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum - and the movie
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë - and multiple movie versions
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (July 2019)
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

52 in 52 Week 50: Christmas Short Stories by Charles Dickens

 Macabre! My husband asked me how I was enjoying the book while we were lifting weights today, and I said, "It is so weird. The story I am listening to now is about dead people!" 

This led my youngest son to comment that the Andy William's song, "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" does have that weird line about "telling scary ghost stories."  This led me to this REALLY interesting article:

"Telling Ghost Stories is a Lost Tradition on Christmas Eve"

Apparently, ghost stories were really common during the Victorian Era, and the quintessential ghost story is Dickens' A Christmas Carol! So, it would follow that his short stories would also have that flavor. 

“Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories,” wrote British humorist Jerome K. Jerome as part of his introduction to an anthology of Christmas ghost stories titled “Told After Supper“ in 1891. “Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about specters.”

 Fascinating! This was not my favorite read especially compared to the Favorite Stories of Christmas Past I just read. I realized that that audiobook was by all but one American author. I don't know if the "ghost stories" of England were as popular here! 

It was good to get a dose of Dickens Shorts though. Here is a list of the stories:

"A Christmas Tree" - This is the macabre one that analyzes the Christmas tree, and then it just gets rambling and weird about death and ghosts. I did not really care for it, but here is a review of it:

http://www.helium.com/items/2273193-short-story-reviews-a-christmas-tree-by-charles-dickens

"What Christmas is as We Grow Older" - Not bad, but not anything earth-shattering

"The Poor Relation's Story" - This one is more likeable. I liked this one.

"The Child's Story" - I liked this second best, but what strange stories to tell for Christmas!

"The Schoolboy's Story" - This one was the most interesting

"Nobody's Story" - Is this where we get our term "bigwig"?

52 in 52 Week 50: Favorite Stories of Christmas Past by Various Authors

 This is a precious audiobook of many classic stories. I got it for free from Tantor Audio last year but didn't have time to read it once it until this Christmas season.  

It only $6.00 on Tantor Audio this year, and it is well worth the cost. It comes with an eBook too. I went back and forth between listening and reading. because, as much as I wanted to like her, the female narrator was SO ANNOYING. I know she is an award-winning narrator, and she does accents and men well; but she puts on a syrupy sweet narrator voice that sounds like she is reading to two year olds. It really distracted from the beautiful stories.  

The male narrator is really good though. So, you only have to endure the female narrator for half the time.   I will briefly comment on each, and I have linked many of the actual stories since they are all public domain:

"Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Clement C. Moore - This is the classic story read masterfully by Alan Sklar.

"The Story of Christmas" by Nora A. Smith - This was the first narration by Renée Raudman, and it was appropriate to have that voice. I thought she was reading like this because it is a story for children. I was so wrong.

"A Country Christmas" by Louisa May Alcott - The narrator really ruined this story. I need to go back and read it in the eBook to really appreciate it (couldn't find it on my computer at that point). The women are so syrupy. I am sure it is a good story, but I liked it least of all because of the narration.

"An Empty Purse" by Sarah Orne Jewett - I had adjusted to the female narrator enough to LOVE this story. It is all about giving at Christmas. GREAT MORAL to the story! I think I liked it best of all, and it is a short 17 minutes of listening. After repeated emails back and forth with the professor in charge of her stories, I could only access this link through the "cache" version when you get the broken link message.  It worked for him on Firefox, but it did not work for me in Chrome or my husband's with IE. Who knows why!

"The Bachelor's Christmas" by Robert Grant (the link is to an 1895 Google Books version complete with illustrations)  - This was read by the man, and it was such a precious story. I felt like sending it to my single friends.

"The Fir Tree" by Hans Christian Andersen - Excellent! It is a story about contentment.

"The Birds' Christmas Carol" by Kate Douglas Wiggin - Bring tissue. This is a totally precious story. I love that the main character is named Carol because that is my name! I love my name, given to by God through my dad who thought, the minute I popped out, that there was no way I was a Karen ("Pure One"), and I must be called Carol ("Song of Joy"). He overruled my mother's wishes in naming me Carol, and that was a God thing. He did not know that I would grow up to be a singer, that my full name, Carol Ann, is an inverse of Anna Carolina, my grandmother's Swedish name, and finally that Carol is the feminine version of his name, Charles. I was my dad's daughter. But I digress. This is a BEAUTIFUL story, and I am delighted to see that Project Gutenberg has it in all forms with the original illustrations!  Read it today!

"Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus" by Francis Church - Classic! The link is to pictures of the actual paper in which the editorial appeared. It is at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Too bad we missed it on our trip there in July.

"The Festival of St. Nicholas" by Mary Mapes Dodge - I just happened to listen to this ON St. Nicholas Day. Imagine that! This is from Chapter IX of Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates. I have a copy that is inscribed, "Charles, March 1924." Given to my father (who was not a reader) by my grandmother (who desperately wanted him to be).

"The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry - The story that was later made into several movies.

Loved this!

52 in 52 Week 50: I am Half Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley

What better Christmas surprise for detective-in-training Flavia de Luce than a dreadful murder under Buckshaw's roof - and a snowbound house full of suspects!

It's Christmas time, and our beloved Flavia is tucked away in her laboratory whipping up a sticky concoction to trap that infamous sneak, Saint Nick, and thereby prove once and for all - despite the claims of her evil sisters - that he does exist. But she is soon distracted from her task: Colonel de Luce, in desperate need of funds, has rented the family's crumbling manor house to a film company for the holidays. When its crew arrives from London to shoot a movie starring the reclusive and renowned actress, Phyllis Wyvern, there's no end to the disruptions - and dramas - demanding Flavia's attention. (From:http://www.randomhouse.ca/books/196414/i-am-half-sick-of-shadows-by-alan-bradley)

I don't know if I ever would have picked up this book if it hadn't been that my new book club was reading it. I am reading Christmas books in December (have a stack given to me from Christmas past that I have never read!). So, I thought this counted, but it really isn't a "Christmas Book" other than the time setting, but it is delightful. It isn't anything deep or meaningful, but the writing is brilliant and beautiful, and the precocious main character, Flavia, is a kick. I found myself chuckling through many parts as I listened to the flawless narration by Jane Entwistle (who narrates the other three novels as well). I have listened to many audiobooks over the years, and I think that Jane ranks as one of the best narrators.

This is the fourth installment of the Buckshaw Chronicles. I love novels set in the English manor houses. The sister reading Bleak House cracked me up. I could totally see this being a BBC mini-series and delighting the whole family (even though it is a murder mystery series). 

The only thing that was unusual is that the murder occurred so late in the book! I had to go back and check whether it was really a murder mystery, but, no matter, it was still delightful!

By the way, The title of this book comes from the famous "Lady of Shalott" poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson (Remember Anne Shirley in a sinking boat?):

PART II

  There she weaves by night and day
  A magic web with colours gay.
  She has heard a whisper say,
  A curse is on her if she stay [5]
  To look down to Camelot.
  She knows not what the 'curse' may be,
  And so [6] she weaveth steadily,
  And little other care hath she,
  The Lady of Shalott.

  And moving thro' a mirror clear
  That hangs before her all the year,
  Shadows of the world appear.
  There she sees the highway near
  Winding down to Camelot:
  There the river eddy whirls,
  And there the surly village-churls, [7]
  And the red cloaks of market girls,
  Pass onward from Shalott.

  Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
  An abbot on an ambling pad,
  Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
  Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad,
  Goes by to tower'd Camelot;

  And sometimes thro' the mirror blue
  The knights come riding two and two:
  She hath no loyal knight and true,
  The Lady of Shalott.

  But in her web she still delights
  To weave the mirror's magic sights,
  For often thro' the silent nights
  A funeral, with plumes and lights,
  And music, went to Camelot: [8]
  Or when the moon was overhead,
  Came two young lovers lately wed;
  "I am half-sick of shadows," said
  The Lady of Shalott. [9]

52 in 52 Week 50: Middlemarch by George Eliot

I LOVE George Eliot! I read Silas Marner (my grandmother's copy from 1914) in January 2009, but Middlemarch is Eliot's masterpiece. And to think I was just going to settle for the mini-series because I have friends who hated it and mockingly called it "Middlecrawl"! 

Virginia Woolf once said that Middlemarch was, "the magnificent book that, with all its imperfections, is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people."  So true! It is not for those who have not seen a little bit of life and had the bright light of their "young idealism" dimmed due to unrealistic choices made in the height of that idealism and romantic fantasies of life. As Fantine from Les Miserables sings, "Life has killed the dream, I dream." I encourage all who have tried to read it to read it again as a "grown up"!

Invitation to the Classics writes:

Eliot called Middlemarch "this particular web" because a central feature of the novel is the complex interconnectedness of the people--and their choices--in the town of Middlemarch. All the major characters are related in some way. Even the minor characters, who gossip in the taverns and at work, influence the main players. 

Middlemarch develops through two main plot lines--and multiple subplots. It follows the growth from egoism to altruism of two young, naive idealists, Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate. Eliot had originally planned two separate novels about Dorothea and Lydgate, which explains the novel's length-six to eight hundred pages, depending on the edition. (p.272)

I will not go into anymore details about the book, but do not let the length deter you. I think it is such a thoughtful book about our choices and the consequences of those choices, but even the ability to rise above those bad choices! 

One of my favorite quotes from the novel:

The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ills with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

So appropriate after our previous summer's family quest to find the gravestones of my ancestors in rural Pennsylvania!

Here are the questions from Invitation to the Classics:

1) Throughout Middlemarch Eliot emphasizes the need to make wise moral choices. Do her characters have the freedom to make choices? 

2) Eliot believes that humans beings are the products of laws of inheritance. Can they have free will? 

3) She insists that people should not allow "a fatalistic point of view to affect practice." Does she make her characters' freedom to choose believable in the context of a world determined by laws of social and biological inheritance? 

4) Furthermore, can they as products of Darwinian struggle consciously and rationally choose to nurture feelings of sympathy rather than selfishness? Or do the characters' moral choices make an evolutionary ("survival of the fittest") model false? 

5) Does Eliot's evolutionary model make the moral lessons too remote from a Christian notion of reality? 

I should add that although Eliot's fiction employs Christian ethics, she employs it as a form of goodness without God. Although she passionately embraced Christianity while a girl, she totally rejected it at twenty and was an avowed agnostic. She translated English editions of The Life of Jesus by D.F. Strauss and The Essence of Christianity by Ludwig Feuerbach, both books that denied the supernatural aspects of Jesus' life but embraced his morality and the principles he taught. Here is also a thoughtful analysis of Middlemarch in light of Darwinism: 

George Eliot, Charles Darwin, and Nineteenth Century Science

I will answer the questions below. Don't read them if you don't want plot spoilers! But before I  start this, I heartily recommend the mini-series: 

 In the excellent Reader's Guide at the end of the DVD, the screenwriter, Andrew Davies, makes the point that for some, it will take watching the mini-series before reading the book because the book does read very slowly. I listened to the excellent reading by Kate Reading (She has the perfect name since she reads books to people.). It did help me to have pictures of the characters in my mind as I listened (I had to do that for the first book of Lord of the Rings too.). But as always, the books is so much better than the movie because you know what is going on in the characters' heads! A movie cannot convey this without having annoying voice-overs! 

I am so glad I did not stop at the mini-series and did not listen to some of my friends. To each her own though! I loved it, even though it took me several years to do so! What is so funny is that we watched the mini-series because my husband, George, had read the book, and he loved it. Why didn't I just listen to him because we have very similar tastes in books!!!  

By the way, the actors in this series are all pitch perfect, and you will see many favorite British actors if you are familiar with period dramas from across the pond. We especially loved seeing Colin Firth's younger brother, Jonathan Firth, in the roll of Fred Vincy. He is every bit as good an actor as his older brother!  I want to see more of him!!!  And of course, as always, Rufus Sewell is perfect in his role as Will Ladislaw. The actor who plays Casauban is just creepy, but that is as it should be! I haven't even mentioned Thomas Hardy who is brilliant as a fop!

Well, now I really will attempt to answer those questions, but DO NOT READ if you do not want spoilers:

1) Yes, her characters do have the freedom to make wise moral choices, but due to desperation, those in the lower classes, often do not always make them. Poaching is illegal, but what is a man to do to feed his family and are oppressed by the landed gentry who dominate them?  

In many ways people, especially of the lower classes, do not have the freedom to make choices to rise above their class status. They are often at the mercy of their "betters."  Fred Vincy makes bad choices and gets into debt, but what eventually saves him are others who "lift him" above his present station. Education and apprenticeships were a way to upward mobility but there was a ceiling to that mobility due to the division between the landed gentry and the working class. 

2) Everyone has free will, but they are bound by the laws of inheritance. See answer above.

3) I think she does an excellent job of their freedom to choose believable. What hard moral choices! Was Jean Valjean in Les Miserables wrong in stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's family when they were starving? What is the bigger "moral" injustice? Do two wrongs necessarily make a right though? Did Rosamund really have the freedom to choose whomever she wanted as a life partner, or was she truly limited. She made a wiser choice for her social situation after Lydgate died at age 50. 

4) Such a good question! I love how this makes me think. Hmmm. YES, we do have the power to consciously and rationally choose to nurture feelings of sympathy rather than selfishness! We are not animals. We have the potential for higher feelings of love. I also believe we have a God that through His Son gives us the Holy Spirit that infuses God's goodness in us SUPERNATURALLY so that we are capable of great love that causes us to perform "unhistoric acts" of good in the world! 

5) No, they are not too remote. I believe that we are made in the image of God. Therefore, humans can reflect that image at times! 

52 in 52 Week 50: Nichomachean Ethics by Aristotle

Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens,
 a fresco by Raphael. Aristotle gestures to the earth,
representing his belief in knowledge through empirical
 observation and experience, while holding a copy of his
Nicomachean Ethics in his hand, whilst Plato gestures to the heavens,
representing his belief in The Forms.

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, said to be dedicated to Aristotle's son Nicomachus, is widely regarded as one of the most important works in the history of Western philosophy. Addressing the question of how men should best live, Aristotle's treatise is not a mere philosophical meditation on the subject, but a practical examination that aims to provide a guide for living out its recommendations. The result is a deep inquiry into the nature and means of attaining happiness, which Aristotle defines as consisting not merely of pleasure or an emotional state, but of a virtuous and morally led life. (http://www.amazon.com/Nicomachean-Ethics-Aristotle/dp/1452601631)

I already commented on this in a freewrite. So, I will just cut and paste it here:

Listening to Nicomachean Ethics while making my chai tea this morning. I really like it. The whole thing on prodigality was amazing. Greeks would have understood the story of The Prodigal Son if they had read Aristotle, and Luke was written for the Greeks!  (Aristotle lived 300 years before Jesus.) That is amazing and something we don't know unless we read ancient literature. It makes me appreciate and understand the Bible so much better to read these ancients. TRULY!

I listened to the Nadia May narration on Blackstone audio. She does a great job. This is a very easy book to get through. HONEST. I heartily recommend it! I found it much easier and more practical than Poetics. 

Rest in Peace

Rest in Peace, Florence Wardrop, on this fifth anniversary of your passing into heaven.http://www.flickr.com/photos/52364318@N00/2095072290/

Thanking my sweet husband for the flowers today in memory of Flo-de-doe!

341 - Mom's in Heaven

www.flickr.com

Link to the 2007 condolences. For some reason, the picture doesn't show up on the blog anymore: carol365.blogspot.com/2007/12/341-heavenly-home.html

Friday Freewrite Fifteen

I feel so much better than Tuesday. It was good to work through those feelings by writing about them and also asking for strategic prayer from Kim, Nancy, Teala, and Debbie. They seem to be my "go to" prayer people lately. I did finally talk to Kim, and she validated my reality that it would have really bothered her if everyone else was asked what they are doing, and she told me that this happens to her all the time, which made me feel like I was not alone. So, the feelings of being down (which are quite unusual for me) were very fleeting.

I have still had a hard time falling asleep, but Wednesday night was great. Last night was not so hot. Therefore, I took a sleep aid, but I determined to get up when I woke up instead of turning back over and falling back asleep. So, for the first time in a while, I am really up long before the rest of the family. I know that I will have more time than usual because now that the term is over, George will be back to taking all of Friday off. He will be sleeping in also. 

I have had a little time in writing for the Bible Book Club, and that has been lovely for my soul. I love to write, and I love Romans. What a rich and wonderful book. It has really blessed me, and I am almost through with it. I am not sure if I will go back to Acts or wait to do it later on in the year. I am not sure.

I am certainly not taking as many pictures. It has really helped me not to take a "picture a day." It is very time-consuming to have to wade through all the pictures. I am glad to be done with it for a while. I might go back to it. It is hard for me not to print them up. I think most people who do Project365, do not print up their pictures afterward. I just cannot be that kind of person. I think if I do an iCarol365 (all shot with my iPhone), I would not print up very many of them due to the quality of the pictures. We will see. 

This freewrite is going much more slowly than the last one. I am not struggling with something. :)

I went to the most lovely Celtic Christmas Concert last night. There were many people there that we knew. The music was so great that I bought many CD's and a CD for my mother-in-law. It was a great thing for the Christmas season, and a perfect thing for getting us focused on the true reason for the season, and it went toward a good cause, a voluntary donation to Friends of the Family Ministries. I got to sit with Teala, and that was very fun.

I also listened to most of a really lovely Christmas audiobook called Favorite Stories of Christmas Past. I will have more about that on my Sunday book review for 52 in 52, but these Christmas short stories by classical authors are so wonderful. :) I listened to one while walking yesterday and throughout the day. 

Well, after Bible Book Club, I think I will be getting my Christmas cards all mailed out. I am not sending too many this year, but I got pictures of the whole family on the front. It is a great card!

I have a feeling the timer is going to go off any minute.  Nope, two more minutes. This is waking my lazy fingers up to go ahead and write more on the Bible Book Club. Maybe I should take an invigorating prayer walk around the block this morning. I don't think that it is raining, and I have all my cold weather clothes close by. I think this is going to be a great winter. 

Ah, there we go, only 45 seconds now. I am thankful for so much, and my mood has totally changed. Oh, it also helped to see someone I have not talked to in 6 1/2 years. While there has been pleasant conversation over email and Facebook, it was great to see her face to face and know all is well.

God is good. 

Harp alarm playing. Back to work. 

Tuesday Typing Ten Freewrite

I'll make this super quick today. I have made some short, medium, and long-term goals, and I want to get to work before the day gets away from me. Dinner is already in the crock pot (chuck roast), and I am ready to write for Bible Book Club and for a solid two hours (something I have not done in the last couple of weeks). Then, I will get to some much needed filing of important papers, going through mail (most of which is junk), and then the Christmas Cards. I don't have that many. So, it will not take that long to send them out, but I need to get to them lickity split (where did that phrase come from anyway?).

I had a couple of things that happened this weekend that bothered me, and I am feeling quite alone today. I wasn't called for Ester's funeral, which is so weird because they called me to sit with her, but no one called me to inform me when the funeral was. She had a list of songs she wanted sung, and she had asked me to sing them (I am glad I got out of that though). It makes me sad, but it brought back all these horrible memories of feeling like such a leper at my old church. I felt so unloved and judged. Because I am somewhere where I feel really loved and accepted, those feelings are so foreign to me. So, I guess God wanted me to feel them again.

The next is a tea with my sorority. One person made a point of going around the table asking everyone what they were doing now, but for some reason, it stopped at me. No one asked me anything about my life or my family. It was the strangest thing. It isn't that I didn't enjoy myself because I loved hearing about what others were doing and what their kids are doing, but why stop at me? Again, I left feeling very alone and unloved, and I wonder if I will go to another one of these. It was contrary to the last one where we sat in groups of four, and Margaret (and old roommate) had many questions about what I was doing. She knows I am not a "career woman" like most of the other women there, but she was genuinely interested, as I was fascinated with her life too, it was give and take, back and forth. I don't want to exclude the other two at the table, but they are two girls that I get together with more regularly. So, we all know what is going on in each other's lives. Margaret just fit right in our table. 

Yesterday was very good, I had a Romans 6 study with Rachel, and I felt like she really opened up with me. That was really nice. I liked hearing a little bit more of her story and what makes her tick. Then, I went to the dentist and met with Jennifer for discipleship. She asked me what I would be doing afterward, and I realized I had a pretty uneventful and free day.  That sort of left me wondering what I am doing with my life.

I know that Bible Book Club is important, and it is what God has called me to do. I also know that Bible Study and meeting for counseling and spiritual direction are important too, but it doesn't have a title, and those sorority girls certainly wouldn't care about that.

So, I have to admit. I am a bit depressed this morning and feel like crying. That is unusual for me. Thus why I am delaying my Christmas cards. 

52 in 52 Week 49: Time Control by Justin Byers

I received this book as an Early Reviewer in exchange for an unbiased review. 

Unlike the previous one I reviewed from this publisher called Be Happy, this one had quite a bit more meat to it and practical steps! It reminded me a lot of a book I read my freshman year in college called How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein. While I think Lakein's book is the best book I have ever read on the subject and goes more in-depth on the subject, this book is a very nice "primer."  It is a quick read and well-written. It certainly motivated me to be more intentional about sticking to my goals. 

52 in 52 Week 49 - Countenance of War: A Novel of Scotland by J.R. Tomli

This is an Early Reviewer book from the member giveaway section on LibraryThing. For some reason, I got six out of the thirteen I request this last month. So, I am scrambling to get through these books in order to get to my Christmas reading extravaganza I am planning for December!!!

There is a little meter on Librarything.com where you can press, and it will tell you whether the computer thinks I will like it based on my data of previous entries (1158 books and still counting at http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Carolfoasia).  The meter told me I probably wouldn't like it, and I think it is pretty accurate.

I requested this because I was right in the middle of studying my Scottish ancestry. So, I thought this would be helpful. The time period is after William Wallace (The main character in Braveheart, a movie I didn't care for because of all the violence.). It was interesting to learn about this history, and I was excited that the area of Scotland (Castle of Douglas) was in the area of my ancestors. I liked this about the book.

I think that this author is very good at descriptions and has great potential as an author, but the story just wasn't very compelling. The main character goes from one battle to another. There is a little romance and loss but the story is not really developed. 

It did make me want to learn more about the time period though, and the historical books referenced at the end were helpful. 

52 in 52 Week 49: Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

I really want to read Christmas books in December, but I had this book recommended to me by a friend, and I thought it would be good to read it near the time I read Argo and saw the movie since they both deal with the same time period in Iran.

While I had a hard time with the beginning of the book because I have never read Lolita and was afraid the author would spoil the book for me. I am glad I persevered. This author is so insightful about the changes that took place in Iran after the Shah fell in 1979. I love how she weaves literature into the narrative. It is an excellent book

 I didn't really care for the narrator. Her accent really annoyed me. Couldn't they have found a Persian to read the book?  I think that would have been much more effective. Other than this, I loved this book. 

52 in 52 Week 49: Dubliners by James Joyce

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Frederick Davidson and also read it on my Kindle. So, my cover looks like the one below, but I just love this cover to the left because it artistically portrays Dublin with its houses and people. That is what Dubliners is all about: the everyday life of ordinary Dubliners in the early 1900's. 

I really enjoyed this book. It contains fifteen different stories with four divisions: 

Childhood - Three
Adulthood - Three
Mature men and women - Four
Public Life - Four
"The Dead" - the last story that summarizes it even though the characters are not related to the other stories. 

I found this book much more accessible than Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man (Even though I saw much of Joyce's brilliant writing, I didn't particular care for the book and its main character.). I would recommend this as an introduction to Joyce over Portrait. 

From Invitation to the Classics, p. 308,

At first view, the stories appear to be almost formless. In "Araby," for instance, the story appears to be an anecdote about young love. But Joyce uses the tradition of courtly love, specifically the Arthurian legends with their spiritual extensions, to inform almost every line. The narrator is at once seen as a twelve-or thirteen-year-old Irish boy, a representative of the knight who quests through a hostile world for his Holy Grail, and the courtly lover whose "adoration" of a Lady lifts him to a higher spiritual plane. Here Joyce uses the tradition of romance or courtly love to mock it. But his mockery has a serious purpose in its service of the final line's diagnosis of the boy's spiritual state. He is "a creature driven and derided by vanity"; these romantic traditions are nothing but adolescent pretension -- a vain spiritualizing of desire. 

In Dubliners, Joyce intended to write a "moral chapter" on his race. "Araby" exemplifies this purpose, in that its treatment of contemporary experience and the traditions that inform and interpret that experience exposes what Joyce saw as moral poverty. He set out in Dubliners to render his neighbors' lives and his own with such "scrupulous meanness" that their spiritual paralysis would be revealed.  

Joyce spoke of his stories as "epicleti." In the Orthodox Church, the "epiklesis" is the prayer for the Holy Ghost to transform the elements into the body and blood of Christ. "Epicleti" implies transformation but also judgment  for when we see things in their true nature we cannot help being repelled or attracted and thus instructed. Joyce wrote to his brother, "there is a certain resemblance between the mystery of the mass and what I am trying to do . . . to give people a kind of intellectual pleasure or spiritual enjoyment by converting the bread of everyday life into something that has a permanent artistic life of its own . . . for their mental moral, and spiritual uplift." 

The above shows Joyce's brilliance and a "method to his madness." 

Joyce also borrowed from the Christian term "epiphany" -- a showing forth or revelation -- to describe the moments of insight he wanted to capture in his work. In "Araby," the narrator articulates what he learned through his "epiphany," but in other stories we must examine the evidence for ourselves. In this way, the stories become interactive. 

Story after story in Dubliners, using similar methods, fills out our understanding of the spiritual poverty and moral bankruptcy afflicting Joyce and his contemporaries. . . . 

The stories are an unremitting exploration of the deathly life these Dubliners are living. The collection's finale. "The Dead," explores the same theme and then qualifies it . . . Joyce allows Gabriel (the main character) a profound epiphany. And in this moment of identification, Gabriel sheds his superiority and realizes his common humanity . . . Gabriel saw a new vision of life.  

The stories are beautifully written but disconnected yet connected because of our common humanity. Invitation identifies that theme as a "awakening to spiritual paralysis," and I believe this is accurate. Don't we all need that; some more than others! It is best not to try to figure all the stories out until you are done. Just let his beautiful writing take you away to the streets of Dublin. I think you will like it.

Also, here is a cute review of a girl who took a picture of reading Dubliners in Dublin! Wish I could have done that! How fun: 

http://www.aartichapati.com/2012/03/musings-dubliners.html



REVIEW OVER

Now for the questions in Invitation to the Classics (Feel free to skip). My answers are pretty lame in that I need to really mull over the questions for a while!  This is where I can like a story, but I cannot always articulate what I learned from it. I am trying to grow in this area! Thus why I am posting my answers. 

(1) When reading Dubliners, notice that many of the stories take the form of short trips or journeys. Why would Joyce use this form? How does the form connect with the Western tradition in literature?

From the excellent Teaching Company class, The Art of Reading, I learned that all literature has one of two kinds of master plots (recurring narratives or stories): Stranger comes to town or hero takes a journey. So each main character take a journey toward more awareness of the world or awareness of self, especially Gabriel in "The Dead." 

(2) If the characters are suffering from a spiritual and moral paralysis, where are they going? Why?

The first story that comes to mind in this respect is "Eveline" who wants to flee her abusive home by going with her lover to a new life in a new land. Yet, she is paralyzed in the end.  

The characters are seeking the West! 

(3) Particularly in reference to "The Dead," does Joyce recommend journeying East or West? What values are associated with each direction? - Definitely WEST! 

Although the west is associated with death and the graveyard where his wife's former love is now buried, east and west comes to symbolize the two directions his search can take, the east symbolizing the "old, traditional, and effete; the west, the new, primitive, and vital" (Murphy 469). In his journey west, Gabriel would leave all the self-doubt and challenges to his masculinity attributed to the women in his life behind him. He would leave the "fictional" view of himself and his life behind and search for his true, "whole identity." In his journey westward, Gabriel thinks he will find all he is lacking in Dublin and find the key to his identity and existence (469-70). (From: http://www.unc.edu/~mgarofal/jamesjoyce.htm) 

(4) What might Joyce's characters do to overcome their paralysis? Does he offer them any option?

Be brave. They change their thinking. One attempts to let go of the horrible familiar in order to risk a better life ("Eveline"). Another lets go of egoism and romanticism in his life and marriage, in order to enjoy and accept the reality of "what is, is"  in our life. I am thinking of "The Dead" in this respect. 

(5) Why have the moral implications of Joyce's work been so neglected when he himself saw his work in analogous terms to Christian worship?

(6) How does judging an author's work to be true, but not the whole truth, affect our literary appreciation?  

I think many people of faith, "throw the baby out with the bath water" rather than "spoil the Egyptians' (take what is universally true for all of humanity from a book and leaving the parts that conflict with our beliefs behind). 

I like Joyce's writing, but I don't agree with all of his points, especially in Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.  Stephen's spiritual journey was unsavory at point, which would turn most followers of Jesus off. I could plow through it, but it didn't mean I needed to take refuge in the "whole truth" of the Word of God for a while! 

52 in 52 Week 48: Be Happy! by Nichole Fisher

I received this as an Early Reviewer copy in a PDF format so I think there is still time for the author to make some revisions. It read to me more like an undergraduate term paper rather than a substantive book. The author defines happiness and the things that make us unhappy and then gives some suggestions for how to "BE HAPPY!"  It is a good basic book on the subject, and it might be good for someone just finding out who they are, but it doesn't have a ton of meat to it. I also did not like the part on "self-hypnosis" that did not really seem to me like hypnosis. I would leave that part out or change the wording. 

The book has potential, and maybe it is worth the $2.99 price on Amazon (or free for Prime users lending library), but I wouldn't even pay that price. It needs more development, but it might be just enough for someone just beginning their journey on the road to self-awareness.